


My Heart's Too Big For My Own Body

by Thebonemoose



Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Loneliness, Platonic Soulmates, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:54:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25415758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thebonemoose/pseuds/Thebonemoose
Summary: Ben had been a friendly kid. He was excitable and enthusiastic, bouncing around the playground or the classroom. His teachers would frequently look at him with slight frowns on their faces, and say, disapprovingly,Settle down, Ben.Ben did his best to listen, but soon he would be grinning like the sun all over again, full of energy and distractions.Ben wanted friends. And talking was the best way to make friends, right?Or: Ben and his loneliness.
Relationships: Ben Arnold & Sammy Stevens
Comments: 6
Kudos: 21





	My Heart's Too Big For My Own Body

**Author's Note:**

> Sooooo after my Emily and Lily character studies I got the bright idea to start writing this (in the middle of the night, no less :P)  
> I've decided to post it because I'm tired and I would like to shrink the ever-growing pile of WIPs, even by some small margin. 
> 
> Title is from Monochromatic by Mary Lambert.

Ben had been a friendly kid. He was excitable and enthusiastic, bouncing around the playground or the classroom. His teachers would frequently look at him with slight frowns on their faces, and say, disapprovingly, _Settle down, Ben._

Ben did his best to listen, but soon he would be grinning like the sun all over again, full of energy and distractions. 

Ben wanted friends. And talking was the best way to make friends, right?

Sure, there were some kids who would talk with him, or let him play with them during recess, but they weren’t really his friends. Friendly classmates, maybe, there wouldn’t be any invitations to birthday parties or sleepovers— the truest mark of friendship. 

Ben kept trying, though. All through elementary school, he tried with… Limited success. Junior high was a new opportunity, though, and Ben had felt very optimistic. 

The optimism faded fairly quickly, unfortunately. Ben came home that first day, nearly in tears, because kids at Junior High were so _mean._ So Betty Arnold held him while he cried, and gave him a few motherly words of wisdom about perseverance. And then Ben went back the next day. 

It did get easier, although Ben still didn’t have any close friends. He had the people he sat with in the cafeteria, and the people who laughed at his jokes, but nobody who truly… _understood_ him. That was what he really wanted. 

Not people who would look away, guilty, when passing out birthday party invites. “My mom won’t let me have too many people over,” they’d say. And Ben would nod, understandingly, and make some joke, and nobody would notice that his heart lay broken on the floor. 

Ben would go home and tell his mother he was fine, just tired, and he would go straight to his room, because he was getting too old to sit in his mother’s lap and cry. He would lay on his bed and think about his father, who didn’t want him. His mother, who worked so much he hardly saw her. The kids at school, who only tolerated him in small doses. He would think, and agonize over everything he had done to make people dislike him, and he would sob until his pillowcase was soaked with salty tears. Then Ben would fall asleep, numb and exhausted. 

As he aged he got better at having casual friends. Sometimes, they’d even invite him to their birthday parties. It helped, but it didn’t fully cure the melancholy Ben carried around like a stone in his pocket. 

Then high school, then college. Ben almost forgot the hidden pains of his youth; so preoccupied was he with the person he was becoming, and the future ahead of him. It still felt like something was missing, though. Some nights he couldn’t sleep because he was thinking about that ache. 

Then Sammy Stevens came to town, and Ben’s life was forever changed. 

He clicked with Sammy instantly, and he could feel his child-self screaming to be Sammy’s friend, right from the very beginning. But Sammy was a professional, and Ben didn’t want to seem overeager, so he played it cool. 

But then… well, there were some extenuating circumstances, weren’t there? 

After their harrowing first evening on the air, they’d parted reluctantly, and Sammy had said a quiet “get home safe,” as the sun rose. Ben remembered nodding, his heart heavy. “You too,” he’d whispered.

Sometimes, Ben got the impression that their friendship snuck up on Sammy. He would turn, and Ben would be there, and for a second there was a surprise in his face, though it fled half a second later, because Sammy played his emotions close to his chest. Ben wondered what that was like. 

Once, Sammy and Ben had hung out on their day off. It was easy, and natural, and when Sammy asked if Ben minded if he crashed on Ben’s house because it was late and he didn’t feel like driving home, Ben didn’t hesitate to say yes. 

Distantly, he remembered his old metric for friendship-- the ever elusive sleepover. Ben tossed Sammy a pillow and an extra blanket. They had been friends long for a while, and this sleepover wouldn’t change that. Still… it was good to know young Ben would be proud of him. 

The thing was that Sammy was there for him, no matter what. Because Sammy was someone you could count on. Even when Ben was grieving Emily, even when he pushed Sammy away and lashed out, Sammy bore it patiently. 

It made Ben cringe in shame when he remembered how he’d hurt Sammy in those dark days. And all that time, Sammy had been feeling exactly what Ben was, but for far longer. Still, Sammy showed up for him. Still, he was Ben’s rock. 

When Ben finally learned about Jack, about who Lily Wright was to Sammy, about the pain that Sammy had been harboring for years-- it was like things were clicking into place, even as they fell apart. 

Sammy was leaving. Sammy was leaving, and it was like somebody ripped out one of Ben’s organs. It felt the same as when Emily was abducted. It was _wrong_.

It was even more wrong listening to Sammy through the radio, his voice heartbroken and terrified… and resigned. 

Ben was splitting at the seams. His body was breaking apart as he listened, and when Sammy finally pulled up to the auditorium after the scariest four minutes of radio silence of Ben’s entire life, Ben did not hesitate to run to Sammy. He was already stumbling out of Walt’s truck and Ben clutched at him, gripping the fabric of his shirt tightly. Ben couldn’t tell if the wetness on his face was from Sammy’s tears or his own, but he knew one thing: Sammy was not going to be alone after this. Not if Ben could help it. 

The crux of it was this: Betty Arnold’s love was in the sacrifices she made. It was apparent in every solitary evening Ben spent, eating microwaved dinners in front of the TV because she was working the night shift so they could afford to pay rent. 

Ben Arnold’s love was in the lengths he would go to; the answers he would find and the lives he changed. 

But Sammy’s love was a mix of both. It was protective, and far-reaching-- so far, in fact, that not even years and miles of animosity could spare Lily Wright from that love. It was also comfortable. Familiar. 

Ben _knew_ Sammy, just as Sammy knew Ben. There was a very real part of him that yelled, in the back of his mind, that he and Sammy were destined to meet, and destined to become friends. That they were some form of soulmates. It had to be fate bringing them together through a series of cruel, fucked up circumstances, and they found friendship in spite of that. 

No. Not just friendship. 

_Family._

He, and Emily, and Lily, and Sammy. They were a family. Ben even saved a space for Jack, carving out a little spot in his heart, because if Sammy loved Jack, then Ben loved Jack. It was that simple. 

Ben knew loneliness. He knew it intimately. He knew it in crowds of people, and he knew it holed up in his room, dark and solitary. Sammy knew loneliness, too. So did Emily. So did Lily. But together? Ben felt that ache subside, felt it ease. The same could be said for the others, he knew. The four of them were unstoppable. This carried him through disdain from his neighbors, from attacks by freaky robotic clones, from the hatred of ancient, rich bastards. And this, the four of them, were what would bring Jack back.

**Author's Note:**

> When Simple Plan said "Are you out there, 'cause you're all I've got" in Astronaut  
> and when John Farnham sang "One is the loneliest number"  
> and when Mitski said "My god, I'm so lonely" in Nobody  
> and when Florence + The Machine said "The loneliest never left me, I always took it with me, but I can put it down in the pleasure of your company" in No Choir  
> and when Mary Lambert said "My heart's too big for this city, my heart's too big for my own body, my heart's too big for you to understand me, please understand me" and when


End file.
